Reaganism in Literary Theory - Negative Moralism and Hermeneutic Suspicion

Largely erased from disciplinary memory, Paul de Man's replacement of canon with literariness as the object of literary studies preserved a discourse of devotion and disqualification homologous with Reaganism. This negative moralism shelters professional privilege and competition from scrutiny, supported by misrecognitions like hermeneutic suspicion, materiality, and identity politics.

List of contents

Acknowledgments; Essay One Interpretive Politics: Reading Systemic Oppressions with Eve Sedgwick, Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus; 1. Reading the Lines; 2. Paranoid Projects; 3. Defining the Opposition; Essay Two Devotional Scholarship: Reading Academic Reaganism with Edward Said, Stanley Fish and Walter Jackson Bate; 1. Neoliberalism and Religious Intellectualism; 2. Neoconservatism as Negative Devotion; 3. Professional Privilege; Essay Three Negative Moralism: Reading Literariness, Materiality and Revolution with Paul de Man and J. Hillis Miller; 1. The Disqualification of de Man; 2. Reference to Nothingness; 3. Misreading Materialism; Index.

About the author

Jeremiah Bowen, PhD is author of Reaganism in Literary Theory: Negative Moralism and Hermeneutic Suspicion and the book-length poems Consolations, and Argument on the Internet, volumes 1 and 2.

Product details

• Authors: Jeremiah Bowen
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2020
• EAN: 9781785272783
• ISBN: 978-1-78527-278-3
• No. of pages: 214
• Series: Anthem symploke Studies in Theory; Anthem Symploke Studies in The
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Literary theory